The Remarkable Journey of PG Connects: Celebrating 10 Years of Connecting the Games Industry
We’re no stranger to lauding momentous games industry milestones upon these pages, but it’s doubly nice to be able to raise a glass to one of our own as we look ahead to the 10th anniversary of our live PG Connects conferences.
Unveiling the First Ever PG Connects Conference
On 20th January 2014, the first ever PG Connects opened its doors to the games industry at Vinopolis London. After several years of serving up drinks via parties, pitches and mobile mixers, and sharing news on PocketGamer.Biz, the Steel Media team took the plunge to impart even more knowledge, facilitate business connections and generally play an even more active role in supporting the incredible games industry with a fully-fledged conference.
Our mission then was simply to bring together a cross-section of the games industry, to champion the best and brightest, support the upcomers and innovators and generally help the business grow.
Diversifying the Focus and Embracing New Technologies
Initially, the focus was squarely on mobile, but in later years, the vision became more holistic with specific tracks and then whole side events focused on other formats and new technologies such as PC, console, VR/XR, blockchain/web3 and the metaverse.
By the Numbers: A Testimony to Success
Whilst it’s not down to us to judge the success of our endeavors, the fact that the event is still going strong, and in fact stronger than ever, hopefully tells its own story.
The numbers also have a tale to tell. We have welcomed over 45,000 delegates through the doors of 45 conferences in 14 different cities (and across the best part of four continents), facilitated well over 100,000 business meetings (formally at least, add in the casual encounters over coffees and beers, and it’ll be many times larger!) and played some part in contributing (from what we can gather) to literally billions of dollars worth of deals.
The Global Games Industry: A Blossoming Success
Notably, in the time the global games industry has also expanded from c. $81.5bn of which $25bn was mobile (Newzoo, 2014) to 2023’s expectation of $188 billion in total, of which around half, c. $93bn, will come from mobile.
Share Your PGC Stories: Celebrating the People Behind the Industry
If you’re reading this, then the chances are high that you’re one of those people! And if so, we want to hear from you for a series we’re calling PGC Stories.
With PGC Stories, we’ll be celebrating your happy memories, tall tales, and the life-changing deals from Pocket Gamer Connects gone by and sharing them with our community. To take part, you can just fill out the form here, or share your memories on LinkedIn.
Embracing the Future and Bridging the Gaps
While we are celebrating the illustrious past, we also need to deal with the challenges of the current market and look ahead to the opportunities of the future, which is precisely what we’ll be doing again in 2024, starting with our flagship show PG Connects London on 22-23 January.
The full 2024 anniversary event schedule will be released soon, but ahead of that, we still have opportunities to connect in 2023, taking place in Jordan (Nov 4-5) and Saudi Arabia (5-6 Dec) in the fast growing MENA games market.